No dogs, no women, no hassles. I’d lived this way for a long time, and I was going to keep living this way. No matter how tempting Audrey was. She wasn’t going to stay anyway. She’d said so. Tilikum was temporary. I didn’t want to admit—couldn’t admit—how much of a problem that was for me. Because if I thought too hard about why that bothered me, I’d have to face things I didn’t want to think about. Memories that ate at me from the deep recesses of my mind.
